Colonial Adventure and Other Stories

By H.Ann Ackroyd

Colonial Adventure is an epic in free-form verse depicting a slice of British colonial history (1936 - 1977) as experienced by individuals on both sides of the racial conflict. It starts with a British couple who establish a large agricultural operation in what was then Southern Rhodesia, later Rhodesia and now Zimbawe. With the rise of black nationalism, the black majority rebels, leading to a brutal civil war that damages every segment of the population.

Of the other shorter stories, all in free-form verse, one concerns a female architect
from Haiti, another a retired actor and a third a young boy abandoned by his mother.
A fourth poem addresses an over-reaction in the climate of fear about Islam and a
fifth an outrage against a teenager seeking to free herself from family domination.
Simba Kubwa is a dramatic monologue conducted by an African dictator.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456881399

H.Ann Ackroyd

H. Ann Ackroyd was born and raised in southern Africa.She is of British and Austrian parentage and has family in Britain, Europe and Africa with whom she keeps in touch and on whose experiences she draws, along with her own, in Colonial Adventures and Other Stories and Across the Rift.She was trained at the University of Vienna, Austria, as a translator: main languages English and German, also Spanish and Portuguese. She has lived in Africa, Europe, Brazil and now lives in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada.

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Copyright © 2011 by H. Ann Ackroyd.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011904226

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4568-8138-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4568-8137-5

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4568-8139-9

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Contents

Colonial Adventure

Haitian Girl

Actor

Truncated

Persian Rug

The Veil

Simba Kubwa Speaks

Rhodes.jpg

Colonial Adventure

Prologue

In the year 1936

two young sophisticates

Margaret and Blair

peeled themselves away from London’s social scene

heading for Thomas Cook

where a man in morning suit

recognised their kind immediately.

He’d seen it all before

that sense of entitlement

that need for space,

So it’s Africa, he said without preliminary.

East coast or west coast?

As fiends on the dance floor

Margaret and Blair packed first a gramophone

then, because standards must be upheld,

other essentials

crystal glass, embroidered jacket and chenille gown

along with tropical gear

of long-threaded Egyptian cotton

and capacious pockets.

At Sea

At the docks in Southampton

amidst shouting, waving, streamer and bunting

sailors hauled in the hawsers

retrieved the gangplank.

Whistles blew, foghorn sounded

the mighty liner, pilot now aboard

drifted from the dock

red ensign aflutter

into the Solent.

Britain was off again

to colonize the globe.

On board, at the railing

Margaret and Blair

stood glass in hand

drinking toasts to family and friends

on the docks below.

He kept an elegant arm draped over her shoulders

as tugs steered the vessel

past warehouse and upturned face

downstream on this first leg

of a life-defining adventure.

Cold bright air pinching their cheeks

two lone figures sat on deck

wrapped in blankets.

The tang of salt, sea and fish

filled their nostrils

while gulls screeched overhead

and wind ripped at the ensign.

They passed the Isle of Wight and on to open water

leaving Britain behind.

It’ll be warmer in Africa said Blair

as they folded their blankets

and stored away chairs.

Not too hot either, or so we hope, replied Margaret

for they had chosen wisely

buying land although within the tropics

on the high veld and therefore mild.

On the Bay of Biscay

they withstood storm and high sea.

Off Madeira they watched children dive

for silver in crystalline waters.

Consummate ballroom dancers

they partied through the nights

to the rhythms of samba, fox-trot and rumba

always to an audience

always to applause

for they were indeed a handsome pair

he with the looks of a matinee idol

she green-eyed with black-hair.

Then came the time to toast Table Mountain

with Scotch

they were tired of champagne

tired of luxury, extravagance, frivolity

they wanted to get on with the job.

savanna.tif

The Train

took them on trundling trek

first north-west to Mafeking

Kimberly on the left

diamonds

the Witwatersrand on the right

gold

where the vultures had already gathered

already feasted.

Margaret and Blair however

continued on the tracks

along the eastern edge of the Kalahari

to Francistown and into Rhodesia.

The pace was leisurely

with many stops for passengers to ramble

and hunters to feed them.

From the train windows

and the platforms behind each carriage

Blair and Margaret were often treated to stunning spectacles

of wildebeest, giraffe, buffalo and zebra

stretching in full gallop across the savanna.

I long to ride with them said Margaret

green eyes flashing.

And so you shall, my love, said Blair

wondering, as so often

at the wild and untamed spirit of this person

with slender neck,

pixie face and jet black hair.

In spite of